This wonderful treasure combines two of my passions: Cooking and Genealogy. What a lovely way to carry on the legacy of a great cook in your ancestry! I love the idea of learning the stories that go along with the recipes. As a child, my Great Grandma Carlson always made me her famous chocolate angel food cake with a decadent frosting and it was my special birthday treat. Have I bothered to tell my daughter and grandchildren that story so they understand the importance of that recipe in my recipe box?

Frey's book has inspired me to start playing with some of the heritage recipes I have. How fortunate can I be that they are actually written in my grandmothers' hand?

I was given an electronic version of this book by NetGallery in exchange for my fair and honest review.

The author, a librarian and archivist's has written a thorough guide to preserving family recipes whether you are creating a cookbook or just want to preserve the original materials.

Those looking to create larger works or older recipes will find plenty of useful information here on every aspect of the process from collecting recipes to adapting older recipes for the modern cook. It's very complete.

Inspired by her own efforts to make a family cookbook, this is an essential guide for those embarking on this project.

The book is not for everyone however. If you are looking to do a smaller project as I was, or seeking to collect more modern recipes, this book is probably far more than you need.

Even so it has inspired m e to get my thoughts in order to collect our family's favorites for my kids.

This book is kinda genius! Combining the desire to cook and collect recipes and the desire to preserve family recipes as a kind of edible legacy of your genealogy. How clever is that? I have often sat in my kitchen thinking about the culinary adventures I shared with relatives now passed, and how even though some of the recipes I have reconstructed, it would be awesome to have a record of it written in their hand. If you are like me and dislike the idea of carrying around a giant pile of pictures and find the idea of scanning them all tedious at best, carrying around a recipe book or box sounds like the perfect way of combining practicality and memories. I am greatly tempted to start asking my relatives for recipes now, especially since the books gives such wonderful advice on how to archive them

A great help in making a family cookbook. Covers everything from cooking visit etiquette and antique cooking implements to scheduling work time and writing effectively.

If you have ever wanted to create a family cookbook, either to preserve your family's tradition or to present loved ones with a memorable gift, this book will help you get started, walk you through, and help troubleshoot the process.

Very impressive.

excellent addition to any family library.

Author Valerie J. Frey has written a comprehensive and thorough book about how to document family recipes. Her book is called Preserving Family Recipes: How to Save and Celebrate Your Food Traditions.

Frey’s book covers some of the following topics:

*The recipe family connections
*Historical recipes from family and friends
*Recipe selection
*How to get started writing your family cookbook
*Cookbook style (Memoir versus an autobiography for example)
*Cookbook voice (Tips on finding your voice and maintaining momentum)
*Solo versus group editorship when writing your family cookbook
*Giving credit for recipes
*Recipe organization
*Using heirloom recipes and tracking down their history
*Recipe sharing etiquette
*How to interview
*Protecting recipes from potential damage during use
*Storage of paper-based materials
*Adjusting recipes
*Explanation of older brand names, cooking terms and measurements
*Deciphering handwritten recipes
*Suggestions for reading faded recipes
*Bookbinding and publishing ideas

I did like reading her food measurements list, oven temperatures list and a list of old cookbooks. I was surprised to see the Washburn-Crosby Gold Medal Flour Cook Book, Miss Parola’s New Cook Book, The Whitehouse Cook Book, or Woman's Institute Library of Cookery not included on her list of old cookbooks.

Some of the recipes you will find in her book include:

*Chocolate Gravy
*French Pound Cake
*Robert Alvin Frey’s Chicken Mulligan (recipe adjusted by Frey in 2014)

Overall, this is a comprehensive book that will help anyone write his or her family cookbook.

Highly recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

A fascinating crossover book for those interested in cooking, family history, and preservation. Frey provides a detailed procedure in preserving recipes, and can be very helpful for those looking to do so. Genealogy and family history has become a popular pastime and passion for people, and this title could inspire those to preserve recipes as well. I have heard many times people regret saving or recording recipes before it is too late, and Frey's book would be a great way to start this process.

Family History just got even more fun!!

This book was a very pleasant surprise as it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it has turned out to be very informative indeed.

Anyone who has a bunch of old loose leaf recipes stored away, or a shoebox or scrapbook filled with old recipes collected in days gone by...here is a book that might interest you, and start you on a mission to preserve them forever.

Maybe you have some of your Mum's or Granny's favourite recipes, in their own handwriting?! Perfect!
How about adding some old pictures with them...easy.
This is a wonderful idea for passing on the collection of family heirloom recipes from generation to generation. With each generation adding their own.
Or maybe you would like to start collecting what recipes you can from various relatives before they are lost...this book shows you how to go about it.

The book covers everything from keeping your own recipe index cards to portfolio's, store bought recipe holders, books for writing your recipes in, and computer storage.
Also covered are ways and means to uncover and collect your heirloom recipes from family members, how to preserve and document them.
Whatever medium (paper or digital) you choose to use when documenting your recipes, this book will show you how to go about it.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and will look forward to dipping into it again from time to time...and even sharing it with family and friends.
If I have any regrets at all about this book it's that mine is a digital copy for kindle, and I would much prefer to have the hardback book version...which I will now keep my eye out for! :)

I am happy recommending this lovely book to anyone 5★s

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my copy to read and review.

I know a woman who insists that every recipe ever created is available online. She may be right, but that doesn't mean that the banana bread recipes I've found and tried taste anything like my mother's. (Hey Mom, can you email yours to me? I've lost it again.)

While I could be convinced that somewhere in the vast reaches of the internet I could find Mom's exact recipe....or maybe the ones that Grandma used for her sweet pickles and banana cream pie... I'd never find my husband's tamales or his clam chowder. Those are in his head and no place else.

Someone else needs to learn to make them, if only because now and then the boys are in the mood for his tostadas and he doesn't have time to cook them.

That's why I was thrilled to get my hands on a review copy of Preserving Family Recipes: How to Save and Celebrate Your Food Traditions by Valerie J. Frey. I read it cover to cover and I'm seriously loving this book!

In great detail, she tells you how to collect recipes from family members and maybe track down similar alternatives to ones that have been lost. She gives tips on where to look for those lost recipes, including lots of ideas that I never would have come up with on my own.

And (this is the part that I need) she tells you how to get a recipe from someone who measures by feel and has never written anything down. There are lots of options and I'm hopeful that at least one of them will allow me to record the secrets to Hubby's clam chowder. He's not trying to keep anything hidden, but he thinks that I should have been able to absorb the whole thing by osmosis. I could probably make the tamales, but that chowder is a mystery to me.

This book also introduced me to the concept of "foodways" and left me with a whole list of other books I want to track down and read, just because they sound so interesting.

If I do make some sort of little family cookbook instead of just putting the recipes I'm looking for onto cards, I should include the durian and some of our little family's other culinary adventures.

Who would have thought you could write a 300 page book on preserving old recipes?  Clearly this book packs in a lot of information on a subject that might not normally demand quite so much material.

I initially requested this book because, as the chief cook in my family, I've gathered a number of recipes together, and have inherited a large collection of recipes from my great-grandparents...all written in Norwegian.  I've wondered how I might take care of them.  And while this book is ostensibly about recipes and recipe preservation, it is in many ways a book on preserving tradition and genealogy and family heritage.

The book goes in to a lot of detail, perhaps more than necessary, and at times it feels as though it's filler to make it book-length.  And because it's preserving recipes, the author includes a number of her own family recipes -- something not really necessary.  Memoir/cookbooks have been popular lately, and Valerie J. Frey has put her stamp on this by including some archival tips.

This book does have value for anyone interested in the preservation of family materials (specifically, but not limited to, recipes).  It has value to anyone interested in creating their own family cookbook.  And potentially it has value to anyone looking for new recipes.  It's unlikely that there are too many people looking for all three, but I will very likely continue to use this book as a reference from time to time, for those chapters that apply to my needs.

Looking for a good book?  Preserving Family Recipes, by Valerie J. Frey, is an excellent resource for the archival of family recipes, and a good resource for anyone interested in putting together their own recipe book (and there are recipes included to complement the collection).
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I love the ideas in this book!

This book is a fountain of information if you are wanting to preserve old family recipes! I happen to have my grandmother's recipe book and my mother's 4 recipe boxes that I want to go through and this book explained everything about how to do it - down to a T!. It's a great book for learning multiple techniques and explains so many things that I hadn't even thought of. It is a great resource for saving family recipes and modernizing them. I really enjoyed learning the ins and outs!

I received this book from University of Georgia Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love this idea and the steps given to actually do this. This book was very helpful. I look forward to doing exactly what the author describes. Thanks for the great ideas.